Kevin, correct me if I misunderstand, but you're stating that as long as we are doing the best we can with our tools and knowledge we're being honest. The collectors had an interesting discussion not long ago about "honest" blades. If we do not do the best we can with our knowledge, tooling and processes then we're being dishonest...
The following is opinion or what I believe, so this is not necessarily fact but my version of the "truth".
Yes, there is a big difference between honestly saying you are making the best knife you personally can, and saying you are making the best knives that can be made by anybody.
The first is the most honest approach we can take to the craft, the second by its very nature is dishonest on just about every level. The second will stagnate your growth and foster apathy, it necessitates dishonesty by giving views and assumptions as if they were facts, and it is just plain arrogant.
Here is where ignorance* comes into play, not self imposed ignorance which is just apathetic laziness, but the genuine state of not possessing the information beyond what you currently have. Total innocence was ours in Eden so long as we remained ignorant, but as soon as we gained the knowledge to know right from wrong we became capable of dishonesty. If a guy is making his very first knife and the only source of information he is aware of is a magazine or an internet forum where he is told that old saw blades
are L6, and L6
is the "best knifemaking steel" and that heating to non-magnetic and plunking the edge into a goop will make "the best" using knife there is, and he follows those directions because it is the best information he has at the time- yes that first time maker is honest and is making honest knives.
That is where the responsibility gets laid on us! If those of us who should know better feed him that line, while he is innocent, those results are our sins being shouldered by an innocent party. When we have access to better information and ignore it we can no longer claim ignorance. Call it denial, call it apathy or call it laziness, when we do it to ourselves we get what we deserve but we have no right to victimize others with our self lobotomizing behavior.
On the other hand I do often contemplate whether it is kinder to allow a new maker to maintain his innocence or give him facts that burden him with the knowledge that will commit the honest man to a lifetime of struggling for improvement. But then avoiding the latter is really only delaying the inevitable.
That is not to say that every first time maker is innocently ignorant. Those who ask for input only because they want to be told the way they want to do it is indeed the best, and will ignore or deny anything that contradicts it are also being quite dishonest. If my advice offends because it contradicts what you read in the “$50 Knife Shop”, then why did you look elsewhere for information anyhow? Go with that book and be happy! Quite wasting my time and yours with these self validating mind games! Once again I do not care to tell folks what they have to do, I am very satisfied with them doing whatever makes them happy.
You will notice an abundance of the quote “it works just fine” in my critical posts; well I must admit it is because when it is said to a first time maker it pisses me off! “It works just fine” is just another way of saying “it is good enough for my low expectations and I don’t care to try any harder”; it is the equivalent of putting our fingers in our ears and humming so that we don’t have to hear something that would rob us of our comfortable ignorance. We owe it to those we advise to give them the best and data we can, not our most convenient assumptions.
The guy, who has been making knives for many years, has been exposed to all kinds of data and facts and ignores them to say that a pearlite ridden knife edge “works just fine” is not making an honest knife. If they held themselves up as an expert before they should of and made all kinds of claims and conclusions that were totally contradictory to fact, they can easily redeem themselves by admitting error and presenting better data. However the more common practice is to deny the facts in order to save face and try to convert as many new makers to their version of the “truth”, in order to maintain their expert image.
Why do you think I reject the “guru” or “expert” role as vehemently as I do? I don’t even want the temptation to pull any of the antics that too many “gurus’ or “experts” do in the pursuit of these ego games. Ego I understand, however the most dishonest crap I have seen comes down to selling more knives than the next guy by any means necessary, and that is less than dishonest, it is contemptible.
*I rarely use “ignorant” in a derogatory fashion, to me it is not stupidity it is simply the absence of knowledge. One can be a genius in physics and still be ignorant of horticulture with no negative connotations attached to that.
:foot:
.
